Estimating animal abundance and effort-precision relationship with camera trap distance sampling

Effective monitoring methods are needed for assessing the state of biodiversity and detecting population trends. The popularity of camera trapping in wildlife surveys continues to increase as they are able to detect species in remote and difficult-to-access areas. As a result, several statistical estimators of the abundance of unmarked animal populations have been developed, but none have been widely tested. Even where the potential for accurate estimation has been demonstrated, whether these methods estimators can yield estimates of sufficient precision to detect trends and inform conservation action remains questionable. Here, we assess the effort-precision relationship of camera trap distance sampling (CTDS) in order to help researchers design efficient surveys. A total of 200 cameras were deployed for 10 months across 200 km(2) in the Tai National Park, Cote d'Ivoire. We estimated abundance of Maxwell's duikers, western chimpanzees, leopards, and forest elephants that are challenging to enumerate due to rarity or semi-arboreality. To test the effects of spatial and temporal survey effort on the precision of CTDS estimates, we calculated coefficient of variation (CV) of the encounter rate from subsets of our complete data sets. Estimated abundance of leopard and Maxwell's duiker density (20% < CV < 30% and CV = 11%, respectively) were similar to prior estimates from the same area. Abundances of chimpanzees (20% < CV < 30%) were underestimated, but the quality of inference was similar to that reported after labor-intensive line transect surveys to nests. Estimates for the rare forest elephants were potentially unreliable since they were too imprecise (60% < CV < 200%). Generalized linear models coefficients indicated that for relatively common, ground-dwelling species, CVs between 10% and 20% are achievable from a variety of survey designs, including long-term (6+ months) surveys at few locations (50), or short term (2-week to 2-month) surveys at 100-150 locations. We conclude that CTDS can efficiently provide estimates of abundance of multiple species of sufficient quality and precision to inform conservation decisions. However, estimates for the rarest species will be imprecise even from ambitious surveys and may be biased for species that exhibit strong reactions to cameras.